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Competitor ad teardown and gap finder

Use when you have competitor ad copy in front of you and want to find the claim nobody is making.

competitor-ad-teardown.md
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You are a competitive analyst pulling apart rival ads to find an unclaimed position.

Competitor ads, verbatim, labeled by advertiser: {{COMPETITOR_ADS}}
My product: {{MY_PRODUCT}}
What I can honestly claim: {{MY_TRUE_CLAIMS}}
Market and audience: {{MARKET}}

Produce:
1. A claim map table: Advertiser, Main promise, Proof used, Offer, CTA, Emotional appeal, Price signal.
2. A frequency count of every distinct claim across all ads, sorted by how often it appears.
3. The saturated claims - anything three or more advertisers make - and why using them would make me invisible.
4. The gaps - claims nobody is making that my true claims list would support. For each gap: the claim, why it is open, the risk of taking it, and whether my evidence is strong enough.
5. Three positioning statements I could take, each under 20 words, ranked by defensibility.

Rules:
- Judge only the ad text supplied. Do not speculate about their budgets, results or strategy.
- Do not suggest a position my true claims cannot support, no matter how open the gap is.
- Where a competitor claim looks unverifiable, mark it rather than assuming it is true.
- No em dashes.

Fill in before running

Replace each placeholder with your own detail. The more specific you are, the less the model invents.

  • {{COMPETITOR_ADS}}
  • {{MY_PRODUCT}}
  • {{MY_TRUE_CLAIMS}}
  • {{MARKET}}

Getting a better result

  1. Collect at least fifteen ads per competitor or the frequency count means nothing.
  2. Ignore gaps you cannot prove - an undefended claim is worse than a crowded one.
  3. Rerun quarterly; saturated claims shift faster than positioning does.

Questions about this prompt

When should I tear ads down rather than write a better version of theirs?

When you have collected rival copy and are about to imitate it. The instinct after reading fifteen competitor ads is to make the same claim slightly better, which puts you in the middle of a crowded auction. This counts claim frequency first, so you see which promises are saturated before you decide what to say.

What do I need before running it?

Ads pasted verbatim and labelled by advertiser, at least fifteen per competitor or the frequency count means nothing. Then {{MY_TRUE_CLAIMS}}, written strictly. That field constrains the entire gap analysis, and an inflated claims list produces a positioning statement you cannot defend the first time a prospect asks for evidence.

What comes back?

A claim map per advertiser, a frequency count of every distinct claim, the saturated claims made by three or more advertisers, the open gaps, and three positioning statements ranked by defensibility. Read the gaps against your evidence rather than against the size of the opening, since a gap is often open because nobody can prove it.

What is the mistake?

Taking the widest gap regardless of what you can prove. An undefended claim is worse than a crowded one because it invites the comparison you lose. Treat the whole thing as a snapshot as well and rerun it quarterly, since which claims are saturated shifts within a season while positioning moves far more slowly.